By Kelechukwu Iruoma

The 2007 set of trainee graduates of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) have protested their non reinstatement and deployment into the NPA, after undergoing four years compulsory technical training from 2003 to 2007.

NPA boss, Habib Abdullahi

The trainee graduates who took their grievances to the Nigerian Television Authority, NTA 2, Victoria Island, Lagos, lamented that they had waited endlessly to be deployed, but it has all been futile.

The President, NPA Technical Trainee Graduates Association, 2007 set, Mr. Friday Onyebuoyia, who spoke to newsmen said, “About 536 of us were employed from the 36 states of the federation as technical trainees by NPA in 2003 and were told to undergo a technical training for four years which we successfully completed and it is enshrined in NPA constitution and letters of admission/appointment issued to us that after the training, those trained would be deployed into the organizational mainstream.

“Having completed the training programme, we were waiting for our deployment, suddenly the management just held on to our deployment since graduation in 2007. We have complained and written series of letters to the management headed by the Managing Director, Mallam Habib Abdullahi who approved our training in 2003 before he was sacked by former president, Goodluck Jonathan in 2012. Yet, no positive response has been given to us.”

The protesters who also took their protest to Silverbird Television, Lagos, revealed that when they started fighting the management for their rights, the management withdrew their salaries for eight years and closed down the training center, which they claimed, is peculiar to the maritime sector.

Mr. Onyebuoyia who stated that since 2007 the management unconstitutionally employed external people said, “it is also regrettable that even when we are still waiting to be deployed, the management went ahead to carry out recruitment of external people into the organization on two consecutive times, thereby undermining our interest, plight and subjecting us to untold hardship.

They however called on President Muhammadu Buhari to order the NPA management to deploy them to the various departments accordingly and also pay them the eight years salary arrears they were being owed.